


Stratospheric

by icarus_chained



Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Adrenaline, F/M, Fluff, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, Romance, Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-10
Updated: 2012-11-10
Packaged: 2017-11-18 09:22:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/559397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icarus_chained/pseuds/icarus_chained
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the aftermath of a little post-fight release (by which I mean, Tony jumping Rhodey after a battle), Rhodey and Tony have a talk. </p><p>Tony/Rhodey, with background Tony/Rhodey/Pepper. Set post-Avengers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stratospheric

Rhodey sucked in a desperate breath, releasing it on a long sigh as he dropped his head carefully back onto the floor. Tony, panting slightly around his dazed, lopsided grin, leaned drunkenly down after him, and rested his hot forehead on Rhodey's shoulder. 

"I love you," Tony decided, breathlessly. Hiccuping gently, rolling his forehead absently along Rhodey's collarbone. "You are the _best ever_ , and I love you." 

He squirmed a little on top of Rhodey, wriggling his hips where they were still welded to Rhodey's, and Rhodey grabbed for them, clamped his hands over the rise of Tony's hipbones and forced them still. He was _way_ too sore for that shit just yet. Tony, raising his head, just grinned lazily at him.

"Yeah?" Rhodey managed, in a voice that was still hoarse and more than a little ruined. "'Cause I hate you." He shook his head, found a faint, fairly dazed grin creeping over his own cheeks. Groaning, as Tony fucking _clenched_ , the fucking son of a ... "Hate you _so much_ , right now," he breathed, and bit his fingers into Tony's sides until the bastard _sat still_. "Cut that out, I will knock you on your ass, Tony, I _swear_."

Tony laughed. Drunkenly, delightedly, but he cut it out. Sat easy astride Rhodey, fucking _finally_ , and leaned down to press his lips to Rhodey's, to mouth absently across his cheeks and huff in smug satisfaction.

"I'm a genius," he murmured, nibbling gently along Rhodey's jaw. "I'm a genius, you're a genius, we are doing this _all the time_." He hiccuped, high as a kite on endorphins and the adrenalin crash from the fight, his hands tight and hot on Rhodey's shoulders. "Hit the stratosphere twice in one day, baby, oh yeah."

Rhodey chuckled hoarsely. Couldn't help it, lifting one hand from Tony's hip to brush it over the man's nape, instead. Gripping carefully around the back of his neck, trapping Tony's head for the second needed to catch his mouth, and drown the hoarse, giddy babbling. Tony laughed into his mouth, lips moving like he was still talking, muttering silent, happy imprecations into the kiss. Should've figured. Take more than a kiss to shut Tony Stark up.

"You're out of your head," Rhodey noted, as he let him go and Tony leaned back a bit. But mildly. Gently. Tony was grinning stupidly down at him, eyes hot and dark, lips still swollen, and Rhodey just wasn't in the mood to be serious, over here. "Goddamn adrenalin junkie, Tony, _seriously_. Do you jump Pepper this way?"

Tony grinned, licking his lips. "Yup," he nodded, sagely and not at all smugly. "Or sometimes she jumps me." He tilted his head, thoughtfully, and smiled wickedly down. "You should try that sometime. You gotta ... You need to warn her, and she doesn't always feel like it, but ..." He hiccuped some more, grinning vaguely. "You should ask her. You and her. Not the floor. Pepper doesn't like the floor. Walls are good, though."

Rhodey ... blinked. Hazily. "Uh," he managed. Intelligently, around a suddenly dry throat. "I'll ... I'll run that past her, then. I'll ... do that."

Tony grinned. Slow and dark, and the cut above his eyes was seeping again, just a little, his hands tight and strong on Rhodey's shoulders. "Mmm," he agreed, almost absently, smiling distantly down. "Yeah, you will. Should. The slow thing is good, the romantic thing you did last month. She liked that. But ... Yeah. Yeah, you should do that."

And Rhodey ... Rhodey squeezed his eyes shut, pressed them closed around something hot and prickly, and shifted carefully, bringing his hands back to Tony's waist. Brushing over his sides, sweeping them slowly up under Tony's ribs, smoothing them back down along the narrow flute of his spine. Feeling Tony settle solidly above him, feeling him hot and warm and loose around him, over him. Hands around Rhodey's shoulders, those fingers, powerful and clever and desperate, holding tight.

"I will," Rhodey whispered, and there was a lump in his throat, something hard and tight around the words, but fuck that. Fuck that shit. "I will, but next time you're coming. The romantic thing. Next time you're coming along. Okay?"

He opened his eyes, opened them on a ragged inhale, and Tony stared down at him. Those fingers denting Rhodey's shoulders, leaving bruises, tension humming in the spine under Rhodey's hands and the legs braced beside his hips. Tony stared at him, dark and coiled and humming like a livewire looped around him.

"Sure," Tony whispered. Low and rough, his eyes hot on Rhodey's. Desperate, never leaving. "Yeah, sure. Hey. Why not?"

And there was the grin, the light, casual thing, the hiding grin, and no. Nuh-uh. Rhodey was not doing that, was not in the _mood_ for that. 

He brought one knee up, telegraphed the move because it wasn't like he had much option, caught Tony with one arm while he pulled the other under him and swung them both to the side. Tony, for all he felt it coming, went over with a yelp, slipping loose from Rhodey in the process on a rush of cold air and an indignant curse. Rhodey ... winced a little himself, smarting some, but followed through, brought Tony safe in under him, and braced his arms on either side of the slippery bastard's head.

"You're _coming_ ," Rhodey told him, low and serious. Raising an eyebrow in a quelling glare as he watched the innuendo waiting on Tony's lips, shutting it down cold. Which was ... kinda rough, yes, he'd admit that, this really wasn't the time to be cold. Not with Tony lying shivering and startled on the garage floor beneath him. But there was playing, and there was real, and right now ... Right now, Rhodey thought they needed real. "This isn't a game, Tony. It's not adrenalin. And it's not sex." He shook his head, smiled ruefully as Tony raised a pointed eyebrow. "Okay. Not _just_ sex. So. You're coming. Capisce?"

Tony blinked up at him, that cut glistening a bit, like the sweat drying over him. There were times the man looked like the most solid thing in the world, a lever, a scrappy little fulcrum who was gonna bust your ass. And there were others ... when he didn't. When he looked up at you, shivering faintly on the floor, that light in his chest burning bright and desperate, and he didn't look solid at all. He looked like a wire, like a circuit, something burning and arched and always on the brink of snapping.

"It's not sex," Rhodey repeated, gently. Seeing the cuts, and the bruises. Seeing the heat and the strength and the desperation. Seeing the ebbing adrenalin and the looped endorphin rush. Seeing the friend, and the desperate way those mechanic's hands had held on. "You and me. You and Pepper. The three of us. It's not just that." He brushed his hand over that cut eyebrow, skimmed beneath it. "Me and her, we have a thing. It's a nice thing. It's also a _you_ thing, in case you failed to notice."

Tony tried a grin. Managed, more or less. Just a little more hesitant than normal. "Yeah?" he asked, bright and tired, and fishing, maybe fishing, but there was something real under that, so Rhodey let it pass. 

"Yeah," Rhodey said, low and rough, his thumb finding the creases around Tony's eyes on autopilot. "You remember what you did? When you gave me the armour, and her the company, and the whole damn world could go up in flames, but me and her, we were surviving? You remember that?" He smiled, small and dark into the wary look in Tony's eyes. "This is what happens when you do that, Tony. 'Cause you gave us the keys, and we set up camp, and we get to do this, now. Me and her. We get to have this now."

Tony swallowed. Staring up at him, leaning sideways subconsciously, pressing his side into Rhodey's stomach. "... This?" he asked, softly. Very softly. And Rhodey smiled at him.

"This," he said, bringing his hand gently down Tony's face, sweeping it over his chest, bringing to hover gently, protectively, just below the burning of the arc reactor. "This thing. Fighting with you. Going out to dinner with you, each other. Flying armours, fighting aliens, breaking some yahoo's company. Jumping each other up against a wall and occasionally the floor. In bed." He shook his head, grinned a little. "Watching Pepper tie knots in her hair while she rants about that moron in R&D. Listening to you bitch about Fury, and Banner, and how SHIELD better be paying you for this shit, because whatever idiot came up with these specs needs to be shot."

Tony grinned. Chuckled, roughly, his eyes bright and dancing. "Hey, you're not all love and serenity yourself, you know. Me and Pep have a chart for the grades of your 'I'm going to murder people' grin when you come out of briefing." He grinned, giving his best innocent-and-not-at-all-crazy impression, and Rhodey shook his head. 

"Yeah, well," he allowed. "Swear to god, I was never as young and stupid as some of the people they're sending me these days." Tony raised an eyebrow, and Rhodey growled at him. "Seriously. Not even fresh out of MIT. Some of them are worse than _you_."

Both eyebrows went up, then, and a thoughtful, calculating expression swam gently to the surface. Avarice, Rhodey thought. Consideration of possibilities, Tony'd say. "Huh. Any of them interested in life on civilian street, you think?"

"No idea," Rhodey cut that line of thought off before it started. "Tell me when you manage to get a taste for it yourself, will you?" And he looked pointedly at the cut on Tony's face once more, tipping his head towards the armour cooling somewhere behind the worktable behind them. Tony grinned faintly, shrugged.

"Hey, adrenalin junkie, remember?" he said, softly. "And it's not like you can talk, either."

"No," Rhodey agreed. And then, more slowly: "No." He shook his head, suddenly tired, suddenly soft and tired, and maybe a bit sleepy. He leaned down, let Tony see him coming, and dropped his forehead very carefully to Tony's. "I can't talk," he murmured, closing his eyes and letting Tony's warmth seep in over them. "We're gonna hit the stratosphere every damn day until we can't anymore. You and me. We're doing this _all the time_ , right? And Pepper too, because she minds us, and she follows us, and she's the one making sure we remember when to fire."

"... Your thing?" Tony asked, soft, real soft, a hand, those powerful, clever fingers, coming up to hold Rhodey's hip. To hang on, hard and tight, and more hopeful than desperate, now.

" _Our_ thing," Rhodey corrected, smiling softly, blindly, over him. "It's a good thing. The three of us. I like having the thing." He chuckled, lightly. "You're gonna let us keep the thing, right? You gave it to us, and we get to keep it?"

And there was a pause, a long pause, but Rhodey didn't move, didn't open his eyes, didn't fear at all, because this was Tony, he knew Tony, and he knew how this was going to go. Long time coming, this play, years with Pepper and him between them, but he knew. 

So when Tony shuffled close against him, when Tony curled in close and whispered _yeah, yeah, okay, what's mine is yours, you know that_ , all Rhodey did was smile, and lean down to press his lips to Tony's.

This time, the kiss kept Tony quiet. This time, though, Rhodey figured it was because Tony had better things to do than talk.


End file.
